The CEO of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, has taken shots at Valve boss Gabe Newell in the wake of price increases for the Steam Deck, despite being a part of the problem to begin with.
The ongoing memory shortage crisis has led to hardware price hikes across the gaming industry, and beyond, with the most recent example being Valve's Steam Deck. This week, Valve's handheld increased in price by a massive £190 and £210 across its two different models, a significantly bigger spike than Nintendo and Sony saw for the Switch 2 and PlayStation 5. Like other companies, Valve blamed the rise on the 'current state of component costs and other global logistical challenges.'
Following the increase, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney took aim at Valve's CEO Gabe Newell in a post on X, where he mocked the latter's affinity for luxury yachts. 'Everyone's being too harsh here,' Sweeney wrote. 'There has been a significant rise in the cost of components that Steam customer spending ultimately funds, and economic trends have created severe disruptions in the component parts supply chain for megayachts.'
The tweet would be quite funny if it wasn't coming from Sweeney. As a reminder, the Epic CEO recently increased the price of Fortnite's V-Bucks to 'help pay the bills', only to lay off 1,000 people a couple of weeks later. Additionally, Sweeney is one of the most vocal supporters for the use of generative AI in game development. Also, the memory shortage, which is the primary cause for all these price hikes, was instigated by tech companies buying up lots of memory for AI data centres. So as billionaire executives go, Sweeney's part of the problem.
The CEO of Epic Games does have some historic beef with Newell. The two companies are rivals because the Epic Games Store and Steam are direct competitors, with the latter being far bigger than the former. In emails from 2018, Sweeney criticised 'a**holes' at Valve for Steam's adjusted revenue split. Newell, in comparison, rarely makes any public appearances or statements, so we imagine he's not too perturbed by Sweeney's comments.
However, the Steam Deck price hike is particularly egregious, despite the wider economical landscape. In fact, it's a worrying sign for Valve's Steam Machine, which has already been delayed due to the component costs and which may now end up costing in the region of £1,000.
